


Impressions

by YoungBunny



Category: Overwatch (Video Game)
Genre: M/M, Pre Overwatch: Recall, includes firing of arrows/guns but not graphic, mchanzo is really only hinted to, pretty much how i first imagine them meeting each other, rated teen because mccowboy says a bad word
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-07-05
Updated: 2016-07-05
Packaged: 2018-07-21 18:50:29
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,208
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7399471
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/YoungBunny/pseuds/YoungBunny
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Hanzo Shimada has been hired to shoot and kill a wanted man by the name of Jesse McCree. The job should be easy; a day of reconnaissance, and a single moment to go in for the kill. Things don’t pan out the way he wants it to.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Impressions

Route 66 is a deserted place; that is, it is a road running through the middle of a brutal desert and only a small gas station and some rocks houses shelter to any passer-bys. To Hanzo, it almost seems stupid for someone to hide away in. It’s too open and is an obvious choice for someone like Hanzo to look into, considering the lack of other people in the particular area, but, if his source is correct, then McCree would be here.

He’s crouched in a hole blown into the side of a rather big rock formation, keeping himself hidden from even the most keen of eyes. It’s an ideal spot for surveying the area and target, and in case of a confrontation, Hanzo would literally have the upper hand in controlling the situation. 

The man who hired him (someone that Hanzo has never met in person, nor ever intends to), someone by the name of Reaper, had offered a large sum of money for a bullet - or, in Hanzo’s case, an arrow - lodged into the back of Jesse McCree’s head. Money wasn’t always something that had enticed him. Hanzo liked to think he was a fairly simple man with simple tastes and a simple way of travelling, but with his own funds running short and food growing increasingly scarce, it was an offer he couldn’t afford to turn down.

Not much information was provided about the ever illusive McCree, besides a dated picture from possibly 7 years ago and a general locations as to where they believed the outlaw to have run off to, which has now led Hanzo here, into the middle of a desert, with the possibility that McCree wasn’t here.

It isn’t like Hanzo to just assume something. He was tactical, cunning, and extremely well prepared for anything that he walked into. Having a hunch wasn’t the most ideal scenario, but this was a time he couldn’t afford the luxury of security. He was going to have to try and track down the man, even if it didn’t seem to work out.

As Hanzo shifts his position slightly, adjusting to get a better look at the road a few feet below, he sees the softest of movements. It’s a barely-there movement, one that people wouldn’t normally see if they weren’t looking for or straight at it, but considering that Hanzo was looking for it, the movement caught his attention immediately. His head turns towards the gas station just to his left.

He stops moving, and waits, concentrating on keeping his breath even and silent. 

A beat passes. 

Another.

The first thing that comes into view is a brown hat, wide brimmed and slightly torn from what has been years of usage. It’s a familiar sight to Hanzo’s eyes, and a spark of pride ignites within him. It resembles very closely to the one he had seen earlier in the picture he was given, and the person underneath of it even more so.

Jesse McCree slowly makes his way from behind one of the gas pumps, seemingly nonchalant as he swaggers in, hand gripping his belt and the other removing a lit cigar from his mouth. 

The first thought in Hanzo’s mind is that the man who stands in front of him (well, not directly in front of him, but close enough in the vicinity) is cocky. He seems like the type to overestimate his own abilities and be entirely too proud of himself, when really, when it came down to it, was only a coward. He was an easy target, standing out like a sore thumb on the side of the abandoned highway.

It occurred to him a moment later, when the wanted man came closer into view, stepping onto the road with the clink of sharp metal from his boots, that if McCree  _ was _ an easy target, then they wouldn’t have had spare the expense and hire Hanzo for the job.

Hanzo began to raise his bow with his left hand, reaching behind him to grab an arrow with his right, but the minute he did, he could physically see the other man tense. He instantly whipped his head around to look away from McCree and stilled all of his movements. Hanzo could just barely hear the sound of boots hitting the ground roughly.

Everything went quiet after that.

Slowly, Hanzo turned back to look down at the ground, only to find that McCree moving away down the road away from the gas station. If he was going to keep an eye on him, Hanzo was going to have to adjust his position. Still crouched, he moved quickly to the next arch in the rock, carved out carefully by someone for the building below his feet, leading just to the other side and onto the roof of the building, which overlooked the rest of this area of Route 66.

Wreckage from the first Omnic Crisis still lay where it once stood. Old train cars were dangling haphazardly from the track suspended above them, and some littered the road itself, successfully blocking off the tunnel that connected the rest of the highway to this area. It was no wonder it happened to be abandoned when there was nowhere to go once you got there.

A diner, small and classic looking was positioned just behind those cars, seemingly untouched by whatever catastrophe had happened there. Even Hanzo could tell that it was like a moment stuck in time from where he was standing, especially from what he could see with the gas station, too.

McCree whistles his way down the street, a familiar tune to Hanzo, but not one he could say he knew very well. He watched carefully as the outlaw approached the wreckage and stepped right through it, paying no attention to it’s dangerous nature.

His line of sight was broken for a moment as the man disappeared behind one of the train cars, but reappeared only a second later as he strolled straight into the diner. The glass, although dusty and cracked, was still transparent enough to spot McCree inside. From here, although it was hard to tell, it seemed as if he was rummaging through something inside, maybe looking for something to eat or something he had kept hidden away for himself at an earlier date.

And then, McCree took a spot near the window and just sat there.

It was peculiar for him to do, since he had seemed so cautious with being sighted earlier. It seemed like an open invitation for the non-assuming assassin to just aim and fire, but for Hanzo, it showed much more than just that. He seemed confident in himself, enough so to risk being seen, but perhaps that was the point.

Without moving from his spot, Hanzo sat himself down on the floor beneath him and watched.

-

It was hours later before McCree moved again.

Hanzo had begun to think that this ruse was specifically to irritate him, to scare him off, and by the time he had decided that this job wasn’t even worth his time, his target had come strolling out of the diner and back onto Route 66.

McCree had done nothing for hours. He had just sat in that window, staring straight ahead, or playing with something on the table in front of him, leaving Hanzo with no weak point nor any way of knowing just how dangerous of a man he was dealing with.

However, considering how infuriated he was, Hanzo wasn’t sure he cared to know anymore. He just needed to get the job done and done quickly. He would only have one shot before his presence was made clear to McCree, so the shot would have to kill the man.

As Hanzo passed through the arc once more, he drew his bow, balancing the arrow against his finger, and patiently waited for McCree to come around the corner below him.

When that brown hat didn’t come into view, Hanzo felt nothing but pure anger, but when the shot of a gun resounded and a bullet whizzed past his head, it was replaced by confusion.

“Y’know,” a voice spoke, a heavy southern accent hanging from it’s words. “I’m intrigued.”

Still in shock, Hanzo turned around to find none other than Jesse McCree leaning against the rock in the small cavern, his revolver smoking from the shot. Hanzo wished to say many things, but nothing seemed to want to be heard, opening his mouth and closing it again.

“Yer the fourth attempt to kill me,” McCree continued, smirking as he gazed down at the gun in his hands. “The last three were nowhere near as quiet as you.”

With practiced ease, the outlaw twirls the revolver along his finger and holsters it. His smug grin is redirected at Hanzo, who is now not only baffled, but completely enraged by the turn of events. Hanzo wasn’t normally bested; not when he had challenged his brother and surely not the guards when he snuck into Shimada castle every year.

McCree pushed himself off of the wall and began walking towards the assassin. “Y’know, you almost fooled me. Shoot, I was convinced for a while that I was here by my lonesome,” he continued on, coming to stop right in front of Hanzo.

Instead of listening to whatever it was the man was saying, Hanzo was analyzing his situation. Revolver; mercenary, probably ex-criminal; a room that could easily be used to ricochet a couple of arrows. If we was going to get the job done, he was going to have to grab a hold onto one of his arrows without McCree noticing, or else he might be dead himself.

“I will say: the last three were a little more..,” the outlaw trailed off, eyes trailing up and down Hanzo’s body. “American. ‘S no wonder you had to wait for me to come out of hidin’, sweetheart.”

“I’d appreciate it if you did not call me sweetheart,” Hanzo growls, hoping that it will distract McCree enough to act.

McCree backs up, holding up his hands in mock surrender. “Didn’t mean nothin’ by it, partner,” he insisted. “‘S not everyday a guy like me gets to see a nice face like yers. Wouldn’t be opposed to seein’ it again if you weren’t still tryin’ to figure out how to kill me.”

Hanzo narrows his eyes and backs up from McCree. “Your words do not faze me. Do not think I will hesitate to strike back,” he threatens, adjusting his stance so that he was more stable. Hanzo’s bow was still in his left hand, but with the arrow still placed in the quiver strapped along his back, it was going to be difficult to grab it unless if there was some kind of diversion.

The other smiles brightly, the smugness that was once there disappearing and replaced by something much more sincere. “I ain’t gonna attack you,” McCree replies. “But I sure as hell ain’t gonna let you kill me neither. So if I were you, I’d stop thinkin’ about that arrow.”

It was a struggle to keep a straight face at the seemingly innocent threat, but Hanzo managed to do so. His movement ceased once more, with McCree staring back at him, blindingly bright smile intact.

“You are a very strange man,” Hanzo comments, slowly raising himself to a standing position. “You seem to be one thing, and yet are another. You are a surprise.”

In one instant, Hanzo swings his arm back, grabbing the arrow in the quiver and automatically loading it into the bow and firing it. He watches silently as it splits off into multiple other arrows, leaving McCree dumbfounded in his spot.

The other is quick and light on his feet, easily managing to dodge the weapons, but not without having to back up and away from Hanzo, who is now smirking. “But I am also full of surprises,” he finished, and with another swipe of his arm, loads one of his last arrows and fires.

This time, however, the other has caught on to what game Hanzo is playing. He moves out of the way of the arrows as they come, but instead, retreats through the other opening and out of Hanzo’s sight. The archer remains standing for a moment, silent as he listens for the footsteps of the outlaw to reach his ears, and once he does, he calmly walks through the opening that McCree had only just escaped from.

McCree, whose chest was puffing from the exertion, stood on the ground, hand gripped around the handle of his revolver. Hanzo could see the grip tighten as he grew closer.

“I will not continue to fight you,” he calls down. “You are worth far more effort than I am willing to spend. Consider this your last warning from the one who wants you dead.”

Without a second glance, Hanzo turns and walks away, thinking uneasily about what’s to come from unsuccessfully completing the job he was hired to do, and more importantly how he was supposed to earn any money after this.

Hanzo scoffs, and struts away, unaware of the impressed smile on McCree’s face as he slinks back into the shade and away from the sun.

**Author's Note:**

> I can be found at tf2crazy on tumblr. Thanks for reading!


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